Devolution and Power in the UK

ISBN 978 07 190 7575 9 hardback
336pp.

Devolution and Power in the United Kingdom
is concerned with a paradox – why devolution has enabled different
approaches to government and policy-making to develop in Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland since 1999, while a close examination of the
structure of devolution suggests that the UK government retains control
over most key aspects of the UK.

Presenting original
research, this book is the first comprehensive examination of
intergovernmental relations in the devolved UK. It also examines how
the UK’s practices relate to those practised in other decentralised and
federal states, and adopts a resource dependency framework to examine
the impact of devolution on the territorial distribution of power in
the United Kingdom. It explains the paradox of autonomy and control as
a form of ‘conditional autonomy’, which has been possible because of
the benign political circumstances that have accompanied devolution’s
early years – but which may not survive in rougher conditions.